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It had started all the way in the sparkling January of 2019, but it had taken until just about June—or more—for him to recognise it as a problem. To name the feeling that shot through his veins instead of adrenaline every time he went on stage as fear. When he’d debuted, he had had nothing to lose and everything to gain. But now—
There was once a study done where around ten thousand people were asked about the emotion they feared the most. And like the forecasters and fake fortune tellers the human race are, the vast majority of participants had said happiness, just because it is the only thing that is so easy and so damaging to take away. When he stared at the soft circles darkening the skin under his eyes, he would think of that and sometimes wonder if it would all be for nothing. If he could stay golden forever.
In the end, it culminated like a sweeping tide during their tour. Ode to You started in Seoul, and about forty thousand Carats attended the concert, which was a mind-boggling number to freshly twenty-four Choi Seungcheol—and to think even that was dwarfed by the numbers in Japan. On more than one occasion, he’d sat in the shower trying to reconcile that massive number. What’s forty-thousand? The number of grains in a kilogram of sand? The number of leaves on each gingko tree? Every abstraction brought him further away from everything physical, and it was only when he opened Weverse to write about his lunch that he would remember that his fans were just as real as him.
On stage was a different story. The crowds blurred together in one shadowy mass, identical in the way they cheer, the way they move, the way they hold their lightsticks like offerings to the pantheon that Seungcheol can’t believe he is—or worse, is too used to—being a part of. Seungcheol gets blinded by the spotlight sometimes, and won’t be able to see anything but the next step of choreography. In the blink of an eye, the performances will be over, they’d be at the ending ment, and Seungcheol would be frozen in the spotlight trying to recall one moment of the concert so what comes out of his mouth isn’t just automatic spillage.
On his secret alt account, he tracks all the content about the group that gets uploaded—especially what the fans pick up on—and it’s a small shred of comfort to him that the fan’s don’t notice these lapses. It’s all about idol image, at the end of the day. When he monitors his own performances, he looks as bright as ever. After that Seungcheol tells himself it isn’t a bad thing if it tides him through the day.
Of course Jeonghan notices, though. He of all people would be the one to. He didn’t say anything for days, not during the Korea leg of the tour, not on the plane to Japan, not for a long while. But then one day he came to Seungcheol’s room with a scribbled list of things Seungcheol has to remember while he’s gone, train tickets booked for one and a heartfelt note, and Seungcheol remembers that this has always been how Jeonghan shows his concern. He’s not like Seokmin or even Jihoon; he won’t force-feed it to you spoon by loving spoon. But once Jeonghan’s laid the cards down before him, there’s the expectation that Seungcheol will follow, which he invariably always, always does.
(Of course he isn’t that shallow, nor is he that easily swayed. Every act of selfishness is a labour of love on Seungcheol’s part, or so he thinks to himself. It’s a calculation, in that way; whether the guilt of keeping something to himself and from the other twelve parts of his soul trumps the similar guilt of letting them know. Of letting them down.)
So he went on hiatus. Stayed with his father in Daegu, visited all the historic places, walked around a city less hurried than Seoul and had a glimpse of what a normal life could be just over the horizon.
It was freeing in more ways than one—having no practice, no recordings, and no shows or schedules at all was a feeling that had grown unfamiliar. They lent a certain structure to Seungcheol’s life that was jarring to lose, but he found himself indulging in it more and more. Slowing down his pace of life to match his environment. And every time he noticed himself doing it he caught himself just like he would a kid doing something forbidden, crossing a barbed wire fence somewhere in his mind. It took time.
And his dad would ask about the group, too, and remind Seungcheol of what he was missing. His dad was constantly surprised in the heartwarming way whenever Seungcheol said the bare minimum along the lines of we’re doing well over the phone, and so it shouldn’t have come as a surprise when his enthusiasm was translated tenfold in real life. Even when it did and Seungcheol was caught off guard, his dad smiled like everything was okay and a bit more of Seungcheol’s heart would unspool.
In the meantime, he helped his dad do whatever it was that old semi-retirees did with their free time and laughed about it the whole way, light and free. Different from it was with the members. Despite everything, there would always be a frame he had to stretch himself to fill. S.coups. Leader. Hyung. There are always times Seungcheol feels nothing like those labels, but he can’t ever let it slip. Far away in Daegu, he can be just Seungcheol.
It was maybe around that time that he started looking at his life more objectively. Less afraid to criticise and slowly learning to scrutinise things he’s viewed as untouchable for the longest time. Something about the fresh air, maybe. It had taken so long for him to build up the life they were living and now— now, they were on tour, seeing people all over the world that loved them, and Seungcheol couldn’t quite see that with the same glitz and glamour he’d started out chasing. It was embarrassing. For him to climb up the mountain and think hey, this view isn’t actually that nice. But it was around that time that Seungcheol had stopped seeing SEVENTEEN as permanent.
Whether that has changed—or rather, whether Seungcheol will act on it will be up in the air for the next decade.
-
A loud knock startles Seungcheol out of the bathroom. It keeps going, and its insistent, annoyed-annoying quality is how he knows it’s Yoon Jeonghan at the door. That’s also how he knows he can afford to wait. Jeonghan is many things, but he isn’t patient, and he gets bored of his own irritation just as easily. Sure enough, the knocking soon stops and Seungcheol opens the door to a miffed Jeonghan.
“What took you so long,” Jeonghan mutters, brushing past him into the house, Seungcheol following close behind.
“I was ordering dinner in the bathroom,” Seungcheol says. “Do you want some?”
“You know what—yeah, I am really craving some pizza today.” Jeonghan snaps his fingers. His face is still heavy with makeup, but there’s a grittiness to it that makes Seungcheol think it’s less of a matter of coming straight from a schedule and more of laziness. “The cheese-stuffed crust one, you know?”
Military changed something about Jeonghan. In the same way that his hiatus in Daegu made Seungcheol think about himself and his life a lot more, military gave Jeonghan a chance to experience two years where he’s on the same ground as everybody else. It must’ve been humbling, Seungcheol thinks. Yet Jeonghan returned more confident than ever, fuller in his own skin. Refurbished. He’s always been enough, but he’d come back more in a different way. Seungcheol still hasn’t quite gotten used to it.
“Your face will get puffy.” Seungcheol glances at him meaningfully. Jeonghan sticks out his tongue.
“I had my shoot today, not tomorrow. Who even cares.”
“We’re not young anymore. Our metabolic rates kind of suck.” Seungcheol adds a pepperoni pizza with cheese-stuffed crust to his cart anyway.
“Aish, whatever,” Jeonghan says with a dismissive wave. “Nothing a good run won’t fix.”
“You’d never have done this before 2024,” Seungcheol grumbles. Both the running and the eating. Jeonghan used to stuff the members’ faces full of takeaway between schedules, but would always keep himself on a strict diet. On camera, he’s admitted to Seungcheol more than once, is when he eats the most. So Carats don’t worry.
So, there will always be a gap between Seungcheol and Jeonghan. Has always been since he went in 2024, and returned with an edge of steel and a fully formed shell in 2026. Just like how the members will continually reference things that happened during the Nana Tour era, and Seungcheol will nod and pretend to understand—he’s watched the episodes multiple times and heard the stories so many times that he can practically recite them by heart, but it’s just not the same. Even though Jeonghan was just a social service agent for two years, it’s two years further from Seungcheol than he’s ever been. Daegu was nothing compared to this.
”What, are you complaining?” Jeonghan scoffs.
”No,” Seungcheol says quickly. “I guess those two years of forced exercise did do something for you.”
Jeonghan snorts, absently fiddling with a tissue box on Seungcheol’s table to distract himself. Seungcheol would say something, but Jeonghan is too deliberate in the way he’s holding himself and how his fingers tease a thin sheet of paper from the box for him not to have something on his mind.
“Do you ever think about the future?” He asks suddenly, his eyes at once sharp and bared. Hungry, Seungcheol would almost say, but it feels too soft for that.
“Doesn’t everyone?” Seungcheol responds immediately. Jeonghan never says these sorts of broad, overarching questions for nothing. There is a part of Seungcheol he wants to probe at, but Seungcheol sure as hell isn’t going to lay it bare just for him. Not when he doesn’t know either.
“The direction,” Jeonghan clarifies. “You know, the group and all.” Us is implied.
“It’s not something that’s up to me to decide,” Seungcheol laughs. “We’re a unit. We’re SEVENTEEN.”
“I know, but if I asked you, just you— what would you say?” Jeonghan has a look that Seungcheol would describe as dangerous in another life. Polished to a razor edge. He’s changed, Seungcheol reminds himself once again.
“A lot of idols leave the industry around this time,” Seungcheol says carefully. Jeonghan isn’t someone he’d lie to about this; but outright saying it is just a step too far. And some part of him will always shy away from the thought—it feels downright treasonous to reject what was supposed to be the peak of their lives before he’s even hit thirty-five.
“A lot of them also start their solo careers.” A bit too late for that. What is Jeonghan thinking?
“I don’t know.” Seungcheol shrugs, measuring his words. “That isn’t a future I can see myself in yet.”
“Who do you see in the future, then?” Jeonghan asks, expression unreadable.
Seungcheol freezes. His eyes catch on Jeonghan’s for a second too long.
“You,” he lies easily.
Jeonghan sags, shoulders sloping down. He looks almost disappointed behind his peaky smile, which doesn’t escape Seungcheol. But then it’s back to the normal Jeonghan after that who just shows his teeth and says “okay.”
-
He’s forgotten how it is to be stuck in a room full of angry staff on occasions that weren’t predebut performance appraisals or not concerning Dispatch articles. Deciding on a concept is a surprisingly difficult task, Seungcheol relearns each comeback.
Except this time it’s slightly different. Only Jeonghan and him have been called into the room, and anticipation and expectation are twice as heavy in the air.
They plan to debut them as a subunit, Seungcheol finds out, only entering once the discussion is already in full swing. In the past that would’ve been unthinkable, but now— as the hyung of a senior group in HYBE, he gets away with a lot more than he used to be able to. And as the hyung, it’s only natural he would get placed with the second in command. Realistically, it’s only natural that it’s Jeonghan when it’s him.
Besides, it’s not a huge deal. Most of them have already released a few solo tracks or EPs, and the whole performance unit (minus Jun, who’s been getting too many acting gigs to count as less than successful) and BSS have been on a roll with everything. It’s shocking, then, that the ‘95 line has just been sitting around since Jeonghan went to military. (He would ask the directors why not Joshua with them, too, but he already knows.)
Seungcheol doesn’t really know how he feels about it. It being a natural stage of progression is one thing, and he can’t imagine doing anything like this with anyone other than Jeonghan. But he can’t actually imagine doing anything like this, period. It feels beyond him in a different way than all the previous comebacks have. Endless. And Seungcheol can only extend himself so much.
By the time he’s zoned back in to the conversation, no one’s really talking about the feasibility of it. It’s all about what they’re going to do. Timelining and all. It feels rushed. Either that, or Seungcheol just isn’t on the same wavelength as everyone else, which is mostly his fault.
No one actually asks him if he’s on board with the idea. It’s just generally assumed that his occasional contributory comments are a nonverbal signal of consent, which is kind of true but also isn’t enough, if you ask him. Seungcheol can’t bring himself to say anything against it anyway; it feels too much of a betrayal of himself and all the future parts he hasn’t decided yet, and of Jeonghan, bright-eyed and loose-lipped and in his element, Seungcheol wants to say. More than ever like this, where the gleaming eye of the camera is trained away and Jeonghan gets to put the pieces in place. Seungcheol spends most of his time not thinking about anything in particular. The kind that teachers frown at and call your name for. He’s an adult now, though, and there’s no one to anchor him; even Jeonghan.
A whole subunit. The idea hasn’t quite sunk in yet, not even when the meeting has ended, Seungcheol still only at fifty percent. At some point everything will catch up and he’ll be hit by it like some kind of wilful devil’s contract. A predetermined punch to the gut. It will still hurt, definitely.
In the meantime, Seungcheol goes to the gym for something rote and meaningful to do to distract himself.
-
A few years ago Seungcheol had gotten Jeonghan the latest Dyson hair dryer. It was a passing comment on Jeonghan’s part, and a passing glance at a shopfront on Seungcheol’s. There wasn’t really anything else Seungcheol could’ve done.
When he’d given it to Jeonghan, a weird expression of grief had twisted Jeonghan’s face. Jeonghan had received it with the gratitude and appreciation the situation called for, of course, and a little more because it was Seungcheol, but the hitch in his face hadn’t left, even as he rambled about how much easier it would make his life and how annoying Seungcheol was for not getting it for him earlier during the height of the FML era promotions. Seungcheol wondered what it meant long after Jeonghan had left.
“Didn’t Jeonghan get you chicken bones for your birthday?” Minghao had asked, watching the door close behind Jeonghan.
“I buy gifts for everyone,” Seungcheol said defensively. Minghao raised an eyebrow.
”It’s different for Jeonghan.”
”I would’ve gotten you a Dyson hair dryer if you asked.”
”Ah, but he didn’t.”
”None of the members would have outright asked, either, but I still would’ve gotten it for them,” Seungcheol pointed out truthfully.
“You treat him sort of like a god, you know,” Minghao remarked, clearly amused. “You leave things at his feet and pray for good fortune.”
“I’m not that one dimensional,” Seungcheol said after a pause, semi-hurt. “Neither is Jeonghan.”
Minghao turned to face him properly. Perched on the sofa arm, he looked small and gentle. “I know, hyung,” he said, and added, not unkindly: “But your love for him is.”
Seungcheol rolled his eyes. “That’s not nice of you.” He felt winded, like he’d just run a marathon.
”You need to let Jeonghan give back, too,” Minghao said without looking at him. He got up carefully and opened the door, finally giving him a long look. “He loves you. We all love you.”
”I know,” Seungcheol called weakly as Minghao left. It rang in his ears for many more hours.
-
Jeonghan stares at him from across the bed, fingers halfway reaching. “Do you think I can do it?” His eyes are shadowed in the darkness.
Seungcheol laughs. “I’m sure you can.” Then, a beat later: “I’m sure— we can.”
He thinks Jeonghan could do anything if he wanted to. It’s just that so much of the time, Jeonghan doesn’t place a lot of things particularly highly on his priorities list, and they just end up collecting dust.
Jeonghan looks at him for a while. With a sigh, he rolls onto his back, hand still lying loose between them. “Do you really believe that?”
The usual affirmation is stuck in Seungcheol’s throat tonight, sitting heavy and sharp on his tongue like poison. No, rhis betrayal isn’t something he thinks he can stomach right now—it reeks too much of instinct and too little of feeling.
Truthfully, he doesn’t and will never see them as a unit. Jeonghan and Seungcheol have always been separate people in their own separate ways. Different values, different upbringing, different ways of doing things. Seungcheol is a very do-or-die kind of person. Jeonghan is much happier leaving things half-sculpted and going by with a passing mark when it doesn’t meet his largely arbitrary—or more accurately, unknown—standards. For them to come together requires some imagination.
In this way, Seungcheol sometimes thinks he’s not cut out to be a leader. If he can’t even imagine himself with the person closest to his heart, tied like a splint to his ribcage, how is he supposed to fill in the gaps with the other eleven members? Jeonghan is always the one he goes to in these situations because of his brutal honesty. Most of the time Jeonghan even dramatises it. Seungcheol never feels bad about it because he knows it’s all somewhat a facade, and how deep he can always tell.
Seungcheol just wants to give the same sort of unconditional, plain love to Jeonghan, which shouldn’t feel like a sin. If love makes you lie, it isn’t really a lie anymore, is it? Intention over action when it comes to matters of the heart. Or the other way round, he’s pretty sure, but he just doesn’t want to acknowledge it. It’s late, damnit.
”I do,” Seungcheol ends up saying into the staticky air, and it beats like a truth in his heart, even though it feels like a lie to say it out loud. Another betrayal, very possibly.
Jeonghan’s chest falls with a long exhale. The space between them blooms in the dark.
“I do,” Seungcheol insists again, like he’s trying to prove something. Prove his love; his devotion, maybe? It should be real and tangible in his voice. He can only hope that Jeonghan can feel it. They’ve never been a real soulmate pair, after all—they are equal parts chance and love. But Seungcheol has tried so hard to make it happen and to make it work, no matter how unfair of him it is to say this.
”Okay.” Jeonghan turns to face him again and his eyes are instead hooded, searching. I need you to be all in on this. I need you to stand by me.
Seungcheol swallows his pride and forces his eyes to beam a strong, steady yes. Jeonghan closes his eyes instead in halfhearted acknowledgment.
-
There are petals in the waters. Something smooth and silky slides against Seungcheol’s bare ankles, sweet and fluid. The ground falls away beneath his feet.
”Seungcheol?” Someone calls from an undetermined direction. Far away. It sounds vaguely familiar, like the face of someone whose name you can’t remember.
He heads in that direction anyway. There isn’t anything else he can do.
After a while he finds his own corpse, leering at him from the waves. Framed in flowers. Honey and saltwater lick his decaying sides. His face looks wrong—but it might also be the uncanny feeling of seeing what lies beneath, browning and broken at different angles. Its teeth are chipped.
Seungcheol feels distinctly content. Comfortable. At home, maybe.
The skeletal, blooming smile greets him warmly.
-
Jeonghan tucks his hair behind his ears gently and frowns. “You need to take better care of yourself,” he says slowly and severely.
”Ah, go away.” Seungcheol bats him away, wiping his forehead and turning to face Chan. “He needs to stop worrying about me, right?”
“Don’t force me to choose either of you,” Chan mutters, pushing Seungcheol away. “Sort this out yourself.” He goes back to scrolling on Instagram. Technically, the whole group is supposed to be having dance practice for their comeback choreo, but it’s been more than three hours since they’ve started and now it’s just Seokmin getting more SEVENTEEN BEHIND screen time by staring at the camera very intensely. Even his antics are tired.
“If you fall sick or hurt yourself, who’s going to take care of the group?” Jeonghan continues. “And me?”
Of course Jeonghan knows the way to get to him. Seungcheol’s only human, after all, and he’s only as strong as the high blood pressure Jeonghan never stops giving him. Jeonghan will never stop using the “what about me?” card as long as he lives, because he knows it’s one of the few things Seungcheol will bend over backwards for.
”Fine,” Seungcheol ends up half-lying. He will try, he really will, but all of them are exactly the same in this aspect. Even though their hard rookie years are long behind them, their quote-unquote “work ethic” and foolhardy perseverance never left them. It’s what’s carried them through everything. It’s what makes them SEVENTEEN. For every win someone else is losing, Seungcheol guesses. Or just another part of themselves.
Jeonghan makes a disgruntled noise. He, too, will always put the group before his health any day. It’s a bad habit. They both know it is, and that’s why they have this strange symbiotic nagging relationship where they mutually assure each other of their incompetence. In theory, constant exposure should work, but as chemotherapy is, its effectiveness is sporadic at best. They still try anyway.
Now Seokmin and Joshua are filming a new dance challenge. Seungcheol watches for a while, mildly entertained, then turns to look at Jeonghan. Something in his heart breaks. Seungcheol isn’t the only one who split his soul in two for the group.
”You need to take better care of yourself, too,” he says without much thought. Jeonghan looks at him, scornful and scoffing.
“Why are you allowed to say this but I’m not?”
”Because you’re you,” Seungcheol replies simply. “And I work out.”
”I exercise. I dance.”
”You spend most of practice sleeping.”
”Like you wouldn’t if you could get away with it.” Evidently satisfied, Jeonghan leans back against the wall, head tilted up. Seungcheol can’t think of anything good or meaningful to say, so he stays silent.
Chan starts talking to the choreographer about one of the more complex moves in the dance. He executes it flawlessly while talking, like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Seungcheol’s heart twists as he hears Seungkwan guffaw about something with Hansol. All these boys—men, now, most of them, have built this from the ground-up. This, the thing they can call negotiating contracts, the company’s value being weighed the same as their private aspirations, respect—all of it. It’s all theirs. Soon Seokmin will join Mingyu in the military, and they’ll be down for another 2 years, but just like dominoes, the 96-liners are slated to return soon. And it’ll keep going till they’re thirteen again. It has to. Seungcheol’s heart twists again. The faint paper-cut sting of betrayal.
-
Seungcheol is in solitude for this. He opens the file Jihoon has sent him—how the fuck is he still so productive in military?—and makes sure his earphones are connected. The first track is something mellow and soft, a stark contrast to the heavy beat. It’s cool. A strong start. He swears he can feel his heart jump defibrillator-style in his chest, even though he has no reason to be nervous.
The second track is darker, fast-paced and jagged around the edges. Good for rapping. It was definitely made with Seungcheol in mind. Jihoon hadn’t enclosed any notes within this particular song file, but Seungcheol thinks it may be a solo track just for him. His chest feels tight.
The feeling doesn’t let up as he clicks the next three songs. They’re all really good, of course; Jihoon won best producer twice before he went to military for a reason. There’s really nothing wrong with them. Seungcheol forces himself to hum along to the melody and fights his growing nausea.
He sort of regrets not doing this with Jeonghan, who’s on another solo shoot. Then again, Jeonghan would have made him take some sort of highly effective anti-seasickness pill which would undoubtedly have made Seungcheol feel better. And he sort of doesn’t want to feel better, which Jeonghan would never allow him to be. No one in their right mind would call that selfishness, but Seungcheol would glare at him nonetheless and curse him in his mind for caring so much.
Only one of the tracks is labelled. title.mp3.
He skips it on the first listen-through and only comes back to it afterwards. The tightness in his chest has knotted itself into a huge, pulsing lump that pushes and pulls with every beat by now. He almost doesn’t want to hear it, in case it turns out too good, the culmination of all their hard work—and he’s afraid it won’t disappoint. He’s sure this, of all things, is another betrayal, this and the way his face falls when he finds himself tapping his foot to the beat. Why so self-destructive today, Choi Seungcheol?
He will be singing along to this. Rapping along to the part where the mood changes and everything goes a shade darker. Mapping out his and Jeonghan’s positions on the stage, trying them out, tripping over their heels three times before making it work. Seungcheol screws his eyes shut and tries to find the unsolicited happiness he taps into that makes him smile while they prep for a comeback and melts the stage away while he performs. Nothing.
Jeonghan’s face surfaces in front of him as he listens to the whole EP once again, searching for another spark. Maybe the problem is that this is all new. That until now it’s been only SEVENTEEN with Seungcheol, and he’s gotten too used to the broad structure of how their music, their songs, their concepts go. Change is normal—essential, even; this is just another wave Seungcheol will have to ride. And it’s with Jeonghan, his partner in crime, his one and only, his everything. There’s no question about it.
-
jihoonie
Me: it’s really good
jihoonie: stop typing that paragraph
jihoonie: it’s enough for me to know you really sincerely think so
Me: thanks jihoon
Me: it really is amazing
Me: you’re really amazing
jihoonie: ahh go away im busy
-
Jeonghan is laughing, eyes crescent-mooned and shut, hair untied and flowing in waves in the air. He’s ankle deep in crystalline water, framed like a painting against the sky. The sea has parted before them, leaving behind a valley and a path of still damp sand, and Jeonghan beckons like a god for him to follow.
Seungcheol can hear the faint tinkling of a piano in the background as he walks along the path, eyes fixed on Jeonghan’s blond head, never straying too far but never close enough for him to reach. The tune is cheery but it sounds all wrong, like a funeral toll. All of a sudden Seungcheol is hit with a wave of apprehension.
Jeonghan keeps laughing and it sounds innocent. It almost drowns out the death knell sounding in the background, echoing in the empty spaces of Seungcheol’s skull. Almost.
They keep going, through foam and green water that rises with every step forward onto damp sand. Soon it is up to his waist, lapping cool and pleasant at Seungcheol’s legs. Then climbing up his soaked shirt to his chest, then to the smooth column of his neck, and finally licking at his chin. It sounds all wrong, so wrong. Jeonghan laughs more and more, smiling and calling for him to come closer in that fading, annoyed-annoying way of his.
“Choi Seungcheol! Seungcheol-ah! Coups… Choi Seungcheol!”
-
The wind is biting. Seungcheol wraps the jacket around himself a little tighter and smiles. At least his hands are warm.
They’re filming another placeholder show they’ve taken to releasing ever since the 96z first went to military. With them, Jun and Jeonghan all gone, eight was just a bit too sad to film a proper GOING episode, even with Seokmin and Seungkwan. And it’s only gotten worse through the years.
The company ended up setting them up in a mountainous camping park in the outskirts of Seoul, teeth chattering and shivering by a campfire. It reminds Seungcheol a bit of their 12th mini album’s shoot—he still remembers the cold feeling in his chest when he’d realised it’d be his last comeback with Jeonghan. How it had turned to a slow, thrumming warmth as he watched him with the members, as they sat around the fire and talked under the pretense of filming and shooting, as Jeonghan had pressed his knee to Seungcheol’s with a gaze sharp as a feather and looked into his eyes with so much soul that he could’ve cried right there and then for all the next-times he’d miss Jeonghan.
“Coups-hyung, what’s on your mind?” Seungkwan asks suddenly, though it probably would’ve made more sense if Seungcheol had been paying attention to the conversation. Seungcheol blinks. So many times he forgets he’s filming with the members and that by right, they’re his colleagues.
“Nothing,” he says quickly, adopting a scandalised expression that he knows will be made into a meme, if not by the editors, then by the fandom.
“Why don’t you spoil a bit of you and Jeonghan-hyung’s comeback, then?” Chan suggests, much to everyone’s rapturous applause and approval.
Seungcheol freezes up. They solidified all the songs and their lyrics yesterday. Recording for their title track is done, and the choreo is solid from start to middle—and the rest is no big deal. Given a couple of weeks, they could release the album almost immediately, save the concept pics and photoshoot stuff they have only barely started. They haven’t even announced their debut album.
(“We’re probably going to announce your unit’s upcoming debut tomorrow,” their manager said offhandedly. Seungcheol choked on his coffee.
“Tomorrow?” Seungcheol asked. Jeonghan looked at him strangely.
“I mean, it’s not really that surprising,” their manager continued, ruffled. “You guys have basically finished conceptualising the concept photos and songs. You just have to, you know, do it. There’s not much else. All that stands between you and the stage is the execution.”
Easier said than done.
“I mean… I guess I feel like it’s a bit soon. For the other members’ comebacks, we waited until they were done at least recording the title tracks and some shoots. We haven’t even been told what our MV will look like,” Seungcheol quickly said, searching for an example and coming up with nothing. He instead concluded, “I just don’t want it to be rushed, just because the announcement will definitely put a lot of pressure on everyone.” Jeonghan continued looking at him with unreadable eyes. Seungcheol began to feel a bit uneasy.
“That’s true,” their manager said thoughtfully, oblivious. “I’ll talk to the company about it. No promises, but that does make sense.”)
“Dino-yah, it’s too early,” Jeonghan says, stepping in and saving Seungcheol. “Who knows whether we’ll have debuted by the time they release this vid?”
“They’ll cut it anyway,” Seungkwan argues, gesturing at Seungcheol. “That was too awkward of you, hyung.”
Jeonghan fixes him with that same stare he did when they were talking about the announcement, unreadable behind the layer of confidence he always wears, and looks at him funny. Or something along those lines. Seungcheol can’t tell, which makes him feel even worse. He laughs Seungkwan’s joke off, anyway, because he’s right—that was weird of Seungcheol. As an idol about to take a huge step forward, it’s odd of him to be showing so much reservation about everything; that is, brushing aside the lack of screen-scripted excitement he’s meant to have too. At some point he resolves to deal with this. Break out of this weird funk he’s been in about the comeback. He needs to be all in.
There’s no other way, honestly. This has to happen. This has to happen.
Seungcheol spends the rest of the free time between filming and dance practice wandering around the lake. He told the members he’d take an Uber back, not the company car, because he wanted to see something around here, and that was kind of true. It’s not an area he goes to often; might as well make the best out of it, even if Jeonghan’s eyes had latched on to the back of his neck long after he turned away.
The real reason, of course, isn’t nearly as romantic or practical or tree-hugging as that. Is it a crime for him to want some space? The van will be stifling with the warmth of all the members. Sometimes you need a little bit of ice. The bite. Teeth and all, underneath a padded jacket. It jogs the brain, which is probably unscientific, but it’s the lie Seungcheol will choose to go with today.
In Seungcheol’s case it doesn’t feel right. A lie never sits with him well. To not love every single second of the limelight and the rapture and the devotion of forty thousand— of a million in stadiums in every place imagineable feels treasonous. There is an all or nothing spirit that has pervaded him and the group ever since they began to know themselves as SEVENTEEN and has carried them like a wrecking ball through every obstacle, but it’s all beginning to catch up now.
Some deep, instinctual part of himself will always shy away from the thought of leaving the group, Seungcheol has learnt over the years. And any thoughts that peel away from the mantle that all idols have to wear. Anything that digresses from the norm and cuts away from the ordinary; ugly, as a bush pruned of its leaves looks. Space to grow in every other direction, yes, but at a cost that Seungcheol isn’t sure he can handle—or rather, doesn’t believe he can handle. It’s lazy thinking, to follow the same road just because he has been this whole time, but it works.
At some level, he thinks that Jeonghan understands him. They both have the same propensity to wear themselves out in these deep ruts, and the fact that they actively remind each other to get out of it should be evidence enough. But at the same time their paths split at some point, because where Seungcheol turns to the mountains of Daegu, Jeonghan turns back to the stage in all of its blinding glory and basks in it, letting it overwhelm him and consume him and turn him into a living god.
Maybe that’s stretching it. At the heart of it all, Jeonghan is still the smart, lazy asshole who falls asleep during practice. It’s more accurate to say that he consumes it, stores it in latent reserves just beneath his skin, fragile enough for it to leak out and shine when he performs. That’s part of his charm, anyway. His reserve. Or rather, the promise of his potential; of what he holds; of everything below that’s the draw.
They diverge here, that’s what it is—Seungcheol keeps everything stored up on the surface, plain and simple for everyone to see, which is a different type of appeal. Not to say that he’s shallow, either, but just that maybe that’s why all his energy was spent so fast— and here his mind breaks off and builds up a mental wall against all these sorts of thoughts by instinct. Today, though, the empty echoing of the wind rattling the tree branches and skipping across the frozen lake shakes them from his mind.
Here he thinks of the prep room before a concert, stylists fixing every last stray hair on their heads, nervous energy fluttering around the room like a bird. It’s in these times that he sits down and tries to calm his racing heart, clutching the armrest of the sofa with the cracking fake-leather while he prays for his mind to stop running. Sometimes he turns so desperate for the thread of light he needs to catch every concert—to pull himself up and pull himself through—that he closes his eyes and cuts himself out of the room. Like it’s something he can do. Like it’s something he is allowed to do.
Sometimes Jeonghan says he’s repressed. And to some degree, Seungcheol thinks it is true. There’s a veil between Choi Seungcheol and S.coups that will always filter every word between his throat and tongue, that will always put his heart through a sieve until he can’t tell what’s still raw and what’s been sanitised to perfection. Maybe the reason his chest gets so tight sometimes is because of everything underneath that struggles to get out. Unlike Jeonghan who can conversely wear his heart on his heart on his sleeve and get away with everything he says purely because it’s so fake, Seungcheol gets panicky when he has to say something honest not in front of a camera because he can’t trust himself to carry it through without saying anything doctored or at the very least peered at through the lens of a microscope. The realisation makes Seungcheol shiver.
It admittedly is getting really cold. Colder than Seungcheol was looking for going out today. The sun is wavering like a reflection in the sky through the branches, and he swipes up on his icy phone screen to order himself an Uber. It comes within ten minutes and Seungcheol gets in, the warmth of the heater nothing like someone beside him.
-
In the tail-end of his time in Daegu, Seungcheol began to think that everything was wrapping up. It had become a gut-feeling that he could recognise; not a feeling, but a friend. All things end, he’d learnt a while ago. Still learning, maybe.
And then their manager texted him and said that PLEDIS wanted him back. Along with a set of dates and times and locations, hair salons and what looked like the start of a schedule. From previous members’ hiatuses, he’d learnt that returning from hiatus was less about actual health and more about appearances.
It might have been that Seungcheol’s paranoia and anxiety would never leave him alone. That it would keep drawing connections between meaningless things the universe throws at him and drum it into his head that they’re real. That it would keep confusing coincidence and obligation. Was it really just in fate’s hand that everything happened to fall so neatly in place like this?
Seungcheol had once read an article about how the mind subconsciously notices little details about the environment and slides its own ideas between conscious thought. There is no such thing as pure chance in this world, or so your mind will trick you into thinking. Everything is pattern recognition and overarching connections. Speculation is just another branch of logic, after all. Seungcheol has spent this entire time trying to persuade himself that that’s not the case.
Even though just an hour ago he was itching under his skin to go back, to return able-bodied and mind refreshed and able to post about how it’s raining so CARATs should be careful on Weverse again, this time the thought filled him with a sort of dread. Everything he had gone to Daegu to avoid, crashing down on him like the roof beams of a house, bringing with it all the debris and ruin of the present.
Then the thought again—not for the first time, and not for the last—that he could just not renew his contract. His stomach dropped.
The problem was that he couldn’t be the first to go. Here he was, leader of SEVENTEEN, S.coups, Choi Seungcheol— disappearing like smoke the moment the chance presented itself to him. That would be horrible for the members, and for everyone else. And giving himself the easy way was never something he did.
Then there was the issue of his roiling gut and the cold sweat masking his palms as he got into the company car, uncomfortably warm in his jacket. Just like how a young child would always rail against a parent’s instruction, Seungcheol was suddenly filled with apprehension. Fear, maybe. That he was tricking himself, and that he would trick the members, the people he took his hiatus for so he would be a better leader and that nothing he did would ever disappoint just as much as he did these past few months.
(And then underneath everything—maybe even primarily—he’s worried that they will figure out that he’s not as righteous as they believe. How he is still bitterly barbed and human beneath every inch of his polished exterior.)
He would just have to figure it out, Seungcheol decided. Months of fresh air and his chest feeling lighter than ever must have at least had a phantasmagorical placebo effect on his mental state, if not a real one. And then the expectation for him to be better would, hopefully, similarly assimilate into his brain and push him to meet it. He’d force it if he has to; as he has had to so many times before.
-
Jeonghan is laughing again. Seungcheol is growing sick of this game. A fear is coiling deep around his stomach, squeezing tight and oozing bile. He feels heat warm his face.
Jeonghan runs into the fire and Seungcheol is as cold as a marble statue, rock-solid with his feet sinking into the ground. Something horrible is about to happen. He can feel it in the pit of his stomach. The curvature of the earth.
When Jeonghan emerges unscathed, Seungcheol doesn’t feel the tight knot of tension in his chest disappear. The flames flicker. Seungcheol can feel the heat.
-
“—What do you think?” Jeonghan asks the moment he gets out of the recording studio, breathless and unruly.
“It’s good,” Seungcheol says, fast and unnecessarily careful. He’s been gentle around Jeonghan lately for some reason, like he’s setting him up for something; like Jeonghan’s that fragile. He’s never been able to hold Jeonghan’s heart fully in his hands, after all. Jeonghan is too restless and discontented for that. Or maybe he only has been this flighty recently, Seungcheol can’t tell, or if it even matters.
“Coups-yah, don’t lie to me,” Jeonghan laughs, only partly annoyed. He can see through Seungcheol’s lie as easy as Seungcheol was deliberate in his dishonesty. Then again, he’s always been an open book to Jeonghan, too. It was foolish to think he’d ever be able to circumvent that with a shoddily crafted lie.
“Okay, okay,” Seungcheol concedes, chest tightening. “I think that the way you sing the verse is good, but the vibe Jihoon said he was going for is a confrontation, like he wrote in his notes and— I guess that matches with the lyrics too. So something stronger might be worth trying,” he finishes lamely.
Jeonghan nods, already slipping the headset back on. Seungcheol should stop being surprised at this point. He knows full well that Jeonghan of all people can handle criticism like a mature man.
Then again, it’s more of an instinct at this point, for Seungcheol to hold Jeonghan like he’s his own, and he remembers when Jeonghan once told him, “I’m afraid I’ll fail,” and Seungcheol had replied with full conviction almost immediately: “Do you think I’ll let you?” To this day it remains one of the most sincere things he’s ever said. In times of distress, he’ll sometimes think back to that day and remember the way Jeonghan’s eyes had softened in recognition of it all. Pure and untainted and Seungcheol misses those past selves when he looks in the mirror every single day.
Now Jeonghan finishes rerecording the verse and it’s everything Seungcheol thinks the song should sound like. Powerful and conflicting without it being dissonant, strong and passionate and full of love. Jeonghan slides the headset off his head and walks out smoothly, spine straightened, the picture of confidence. This won’t be something Jeonghan is okay with leaving half done—no, this is going to be another rare all-or-nothing moment of his. Seungcheol admires and envies his energy, even as his gut twists another incremental fraction more as he wordlessly takes Jeonghan’s hand, smiling.
For some reason, it’s now, when they’re recording the last B-side of the album, Seungcheol sharing some of his warmth with Jeonghan’s clammy palm, everything fitting together too perfectly and too real and too much, that he lets himself wake up, give name to the feeling of uncertainty creeping up over him the past few weeks, and come to terms with the fact that he’s not ready. Which isn’t the worst part—the thing is, Seungcheol has been fooling himself that it’s just a phase and that it will pass, when he really doesn’t know when he’ll ever be ready. He’s more than okay with watching Jeonghan through the glass wall slicing the room into everything beautiful and new and dangerous and then the leftover. He, for once—or more accurately, as he has wanted to be for too long—is okay with being on the outside.
Seungcheol steps forward and hugs Jeonghan.
“Yah, what’s this for?” Jeonghan asks, quiet and half bemused.
“Everything.”
“Huh. You’re going to have to be a bit more specific, S.coups-ssi,” Jeonghan says, voice unreadable.
“Mmm. You’re everything,” Seungcheol says softly, and somewhere their atoms align and they melt into each other. He hopes this will be enough. He has never been one for grand spectacles.
And the thing that should follow is to tell him, but he can’t like this—not vulnerable and breakable; what he’s kept pretending was Jeonghan and not Seungcheol. Both of them might shatter like glass if Seungcheol looses his arrow-headed words into the sky, head angled away from the clouds like this.
“So are we still doing this?” Jeonghan disentangles himself from Seungcheol’s grip, staying close enough to look into his eyes. There has never been another moment like this, where Jeonghan’s eyes are free from desire and any ounce of true selfishness Seungcheol unrepentantly allows, full of love and warmth. This is Jeonghan allowing him; this is supposed to be the time for Seungcheol to indulge in honesty, to be larger than himself, but—
“Yeah.”
And then, as retaliation, later:
(They are lying side to side, face up like dead fish, lungs full of air. It is the kind of silence that screams for something to fill it. More expectation, but Seungcheol is kind of tired of that. Jeonghan speaks first.)
”Will you ever outright tell me?”
Seungcheol knows what Jeonghan is talking about. Still, he plays dumb. It’s easier this way, and it’s a form of self-defense against an attack he is inviting himself. “Tell you what?”
”Yah, Choi Seungcheol.” Jeonghan turns on his side, smile crooked and humourless. You’re not stupid, his eyes say as they gleam in the dark like animal pupils. Don’t pretend. And Seungcheol will follow again, and again, and again, and he will maybe perhaps finally stop fooling around and telling himself that this is not all for himself.
”Yoon Jeonghan.” His body protests, his mouth forming the shape of the words in automatic recognition, in computer coded sequence, even though he’s already decided he’s done with this dance. Will be, soon, but it’s still just too much for him, the ever-weaker one of the two, to be the first to say it.
“I’m not someone you have to protect, Seungcheol.” Jeonghan curls his lip in disgust.
Seungcheol deflates. “I know.” It’s taken an embarrassingly long amount of time for him to figure this out. Some semblance of weight lifts from him as Jeonghan’s words sink like a knife into his chest.
Jeonghan’s expression stays unchanged and his eyes seem to look through Seungcheol more than at him. Jeonghan is saying this as much for himself as he is for Seungcheol, he knows. Both of them—all of them—are ultimately creatures of mutual kindness and self-interest alike. “Fuck you.”
It’s too harsh, even for Jeonghan, but Seungcheol suspects that might be on purpose. He’s trembling. Seungcheol knows he won’t cry, though. Sure enough, Jeonghan just breathes out and closes his eyes. Seungcheol stays wide awake beside the razor-sharp figure he calls home.
A long silence stretches and it’s a different kind. The kind that waits. Seungcheol thinks that can’t be more fitting. He will wait—it’s just whether Jeonghan will and even though he knows that it has been more than a decade with them waiting for each other, and that they have made it through so much, some not-so-small part of him will always ponder the worst. Stare into the void and fully expect death to jump out and greet him. In most cases, this doesn’t happen. Yet.
Seungcheol thinks today that he’s going to jump in first. Balance things out a little; labours of love must necessarily be unselfish to be pure, but if he can show that he means it, it doesn’t matter anyway. He decides that it won’t matter if he is a little selfish as long as he means all of it with his whole heart. “We’ll be okay, right?”
“Yeah.” Jeonghan exhales thinly, face cracking into a small but genuine smile. “I’ve known for a while, stupid. It’ll only take half the time.”
Half. Something they can share. A domestic creature comfort they can cup in their outstretched palms together. Seungcheol thinks he’s been a bit unfair to Jeonghan, but also, as Jeonghan would want him to acknowledge, to himself. An even split.
Seungcheol says nothing in the end. Just takes Jeonghan’s hand under the covers and gives it a squeeze. Then he will wait for the temperamental, perennially thunderstorming beast-creature-hurt-animal-full-of-wounds-and-glass that Jeonghan is to come back to him. His chest uncoils even as Jeonghan turns away from him.
Somewhere in the time between waking and sleeping, right before Seungcheol slips under, Jeonghan takes his hand and returns it with love.